* Bettie Page is in a coma. I had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Page a while back and it’s one of the high points of my professional life. Not only was in-her-prime Bettie a contender for the title of “sexiest woman in human history,” but her sexiness was almost antithetical to the antiseptic, angry, emaciated “sexiness” that is today’s norm. I wish her nothing but health and happiness.
* They’re gonna make a Bourne sequel based on a non-Bourne Robert Ludlum novel, The Parsifal Mosaic. Based on the description, there are a couple of ways they could go with this, depending on what aspects of the set-up they choose to emphasize.
* Speaking of Bourne, Jon Hastings responds to my lengthy post comparing the Bourne and nu-Bond series. I find that even while I agree with many of his specific observations, the conclusions he draws from them–that the action scenes are hard to parse, that there’s no sense of space in them–are more or less the opposite of mine. But it’s a free country, no matter what those dastardly CIA types are up to. (Also, Rambo is my favorite movie of any kind so far this year, Jon.)
* This riff on the technologically ensured inescapability of bad news about the economy reminded me a lot of the bit in World War Z about “Land Warrior” communications link-ups between the soldiers and the effect that has on morale when your fellow soldiers start getting eaten by zombies. (Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
* Speaking of Coates, he spots and participates in an ongoing multiblog debate regarding the use of torture in…World of Warcraft. I noticed this back when Bruce Baugh blogged about it–the deliberate slaughter of non-combatants, as well–but to me it just scanned as “well, yeah, you’re playing a member of an evil death cult.” Some players seem to hold that point of view as well, but others are upset about it on moral, storytelling, and/or gameplay grounds varyingly. Bruce?
* I think it’s pretty amusing that Rich Johnston is treating the fact that writers of event tie-in titles must conform to the wishes of the writer of the main event like it’s news, especially when his specific contentions regarding the difficulty therein are being expressly rejected. But at least he’s running the correction, which is more than he did with me when I was administrator of Wizard’s message board and he wrongfully accused us of banning him, then promised a retraction when I busted my hump figuring out why he couldn’t access the board and fixing the problem for him, a retraction he never issued.
Ta-Nehisi (damn that’s a cool name; his parents were just plain hipper than mine; sometimes I think I should plan to celebrate 50 with a name change) is talking about something else in the game – a series of quests available to all, that help set up for some later quests and dungeoneering. I have conflicted views about that stuff myself and need to blog about it once I shuck this damn stomach bug and catch up on stuff.
It’s more about the decisions constantly changing causing people to keep having to change their scripts. Repeatedly. To frustration.
Still I’m pleased you’re not holding any kind of grudge over events that I confess I’d totally forgotten. I’m certainly happy to run said retraction, and if you’d reminded me about it over the (how many?) years I’d have definitely run one before now.
Oh, I definitely did hold that grudge, Rich! What gave you the impression I didn’t? But I’m happy to drop it now.
Wasn’t the fact that Bond was indistinguishable from his opponents in some of the fights in the second movie part of the point? His actions gain clarity as he gains moral clarity and is able to better distinguish himself against the people he’s fighting.
The way the two films use the action to compare Bond to others — including the woman in this latest film — is the most interesting thing about the two movies. Well, that and the Norman Fell thing.
What a great observation! I never consciously thought of that, but you’re right, that’s obviously intentional. I’m thinking of the fights in the stairwell during Casino Royale, where Vesper is sort of equally horrified by both Bond and his attackers.
I have no idea what you’re talking about with Norman Fell, though.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about with Norman Fell, though.”
I do!
I’m kidding, I don’t.
Having read The Parsifal Mosaic, which is a good story but not a Jason Bourne story, that news makes me extremely uncomfortable.
Tom – That’s an interesting observation. It didn’t read that way to me: we can tell Bond and Mitchell apart just fine until it gets to the part with the scaffolding and the ropes (i.e., the part that would be the most difficult to choreograph and edit for clarity). But I’m definitely looking at it in terms of a larger trend among a bunch of action movies, so I may be missing out on some of the specifics of this given instance.
>What gave you the impression I didn’t?
You never mentioning it until now.
The guy playing James Bond looks like Norman Fell.